Is there a possibility to install two versions of a application?

[Olli]

Hello,

is there a possibillity to install two versions of an application via pamac ? In my case i’m using Kicad in it’s actual version 5.10 and i want to install the release candidate 5.99 from the aur in parallel. Because of all changes in this application i need to use 5.10 as ordinary and use 5.99 to get into all the new changes. usually pamac want’s to replace 5.10 with 5.99 but that’s not my aim.

Thanks in advance

[Shirshendu]

I do not think that it is possible to install two versions of the same package via pamac.
Maybe you can try download an appimage of the software, if possible and run the two versions.
And, kicad distributes it as flatpak too, which you can install as --user as @Tomek said.

Install using Flatpak

However, running commands per-user can be useful for testing and development purposes, since objects that are installed in this way won’t be available to other users on the system. To do this, use the --user option, which can be used in combination with most flatpak commands.

https://docs.flatpak.org/en/latest/using-flatpak.html#system-versus-user

[Tomek]

If one is from AUR you can edit PKGBUILD to install in other locations and names (if this is possible and will work). Otherwise you can install flatpak, snap or appimage. Other method is to download binary (or source code and compile) and put it in desired location

[Olli]

@Shirshendu @Tomek,
Thanks for your replies, i already thought it’s not that simple. I’m no fan of flatpacks or snaps but i think i have to try it this way.

P.S.: I’m thinking of running a more suitable distro for kicad (mx-linux) in a vm and install 5.99 in there. that will prevent that 3d-modells, modules and other stuff could interfere, because i’m afraid that the parallel install will cause failures.